Written by: Dr Clare Stone, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
How to thrive by focussing on your superpowers and not your kryptonite
So many of us from a young age have been taught implicitly, or even explicitly, to focus on the areas we are weakest. For example at school if I was gifted at maths but struggling in French I might get a tutor to help me with my lack of linguistic ability, yet is this really worth the investment in time and resources if my goal is to become an engineer?
The parental and societal expectation that we are not allowed to be below par in some areas, and that resources should be poured into areas of weakness is fundamentally flawed. Firstly we should ask the question how relevant is the perceived weakness to our aims and goals? If it is important then yes, perhaps it would be useful to pay some attention to it. However, there is another perspective worth considering.
If a child was naturally gifted at maths, what if the extra attention and resources were given to this natural talent? As opposed to focussing on areas of weakness, what if we accepted that being good enough at everything could cost us being ‘exceptional’ at a select few. If we could harness most of our time and energy into areas we are naturally talented, not only would that boost self-esteem and confidence, but you can take your learnings and career to new heights you never thought possible by honing your natural gifts and skills to new levels of excellence.
Let me be clear that I am NOT saying that you should not address weaknesses, simply to think carefully about what and how much of your most precious resource you dedicate to them. Your time.
A Strengths-Based Approach versus the Deficit Model
Much of the study and application of psychology historically has followed what is referred to as a deficit model. In other words, what are the problem areas and how to we rectify these?
This principle has been largely beneficial in the field of mental health, where the scientific study of human psychology can be applied in a way that can help those who experience mental ill-health to improve their quality of life.
Psychology fell into the pattern of researching pathology, treatment and outcomes. However, by focussing only on the perceived limitations or problem areas, are we missing a key ingredient here? Why should the application of psychological knowledge be limited only to this deficit model of improving mental illness?
I am certainly not the first psychologist to ask this question. Martin Seligman, who was the president of the American Psychological Association at the time, committed to the scientific study of trying to understand what makes people happy and helps them to thrive. This gave birth to a new field of psychology named ‘Positive Psychology’.
Positive Psychology
Do not be fooled by the name of this approach. It can be deceiving and I sometimes lose people just with the mention of the word positive. People tend to think of ‘rose-tinted glasses’ and advice such as ‘just think happy thoughts and everything will be OK. This is far from the reality of what this field of psychology represents.
Positive psychology is a strengths-based approach. It argues that focussing on human potential and strength can help to further improve health, wellbeing, performance and overall life satisfaction.
Through his extensive research, Seligman found that by discovering our unique virtues and strengths we can learn to embrace and harness these to further enhance our quality of life. The first step of this is to identify and understand these signature strengths and learn how to exploit these to their fullest potential.
And my super-power is HONESTY! Eh, are you joking?
The VIA Institute on Character has a character quiz that you can take online where you discover your own character strengths. I was very excited to learn mine, only to feel utter disappointment when my top superpower was apparently HONESTY. ‘How boring’ I thought, that must be the worst superpower ever! Hi, I am Clare, the Super Honest woman!
When reflecting on this I realised something very important. We do not tend to see value in that which comes easily to us. We assume that because we find this easy and it just comes so naturally that the lack of effort means it is worthless. What a flawed perspective!
I also recognised the consequences of this strength at times. People can take advantage of your honesty. Sometimes honesty is more beneficial to others and problematic for yourself.
Being rubbish at bluffing or telling lies means that I am awful at games like poker, and my mum only had to look at my lack of eye contact and bright red cheeks to know when I wasn’t telling the full truth. At times honesty really sucked!
BUT it soon hit me that having knowledge of this character strength is incredibly helpful. It highlights that honesty is an important value in my life, and as such is something that I wanted to ensure was a core part of my business and the way I work. Funny enough, I also find that this is the feedback I regularly get from my clients. Some of the things they most appreciate about me and the way I work is my honesty, transparency, authenticity and genuine care for them.
Knowing your character strengths can increase your sense of purpose in life and in the work you do, as you can choose to work in accordance with your own core values, what matters most to you and what comes easily to you.
The link below if you want to discover yours:
Dr Clare Stone, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr Clare Stone is a specialist in life-purpose, performance and transformational coaching. Her strong belief is that we can use psychological knowledge to help others to truly flourish and live a life filled with purpose, meaning and contentment. She created the social media platform ‘Elevate Psychology’, with the mission of spreading the message of Positive Psychology to a wider audience. Dr Stone is fully committed to helping others to reach their fullest potential through self-development, lifelong growth and a sense of accomplishment.
Dr Clare Stone began her career as a Counselling Psychologist, and now runs her own successful and busy Psychology business called Dr Stone Elevate. She specialises in transformational coaching and trauma therapy. Dr Stone prides herself on providing the highest quality mental health care, using holistic and customised evidencae-based psychological interventions. Dr Stone has a passion for helping her clients to realise, achieve and even surpass their identified goals. She was also a Professional Development tutor and occasional Lecturer on the Doctorate for Counselling Psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University.
